Chapter Ten – The Deeper Well
"Spike? Now would be a good time," Giles called out from behind him.
Why do people think that he has all the answers? He came here once with the poof. And they didn't succeed in helping Fred. Drogyn bit the dust and left them without a way into the Well. Why? It couldn't be simple.
"Blue? Some help here would be appreciated," Spike asked the ghostly Old One.
"You must be worthy to enter."
"Hey, I was more than worthy the last time. Don't tell me that Angel was the only one worthy? That will not make my day."
Illyria turned to look at the advancing creature right behind them. "You are a Champion also."
"Yeah, and all the cup contained was Mountain Dew."
Willow let go with another burst of energy to try and slow the creature down. It just clicked its pincers in glee as it started to bend down to take a chunk out of one of them.
"Nothin's working, guys," Willow pointed out to the other two.
"And you call yourself the most powerful witch in this dimension," Illyria's scathing reply came out.
"Not callin' myself anything."
This of course made Willow get all in a huff, making her lash out at the creature, knocking it over with a large crash. But it slowly started to get up again. Willow's eyes started to turn black as she conjured up a new spell.
"Uh, abracadabra." Nothing. "Open sesame?" Nothing again. "Bloody fucking hell. Just open up, will ya?" Spike tried again, kicking the tree with all his might. "I'm the one who went up in a fireball in Sunnyhell. I'm the one who took on those dickwads from the Circle of the Black Thorn. If that's not a Champion, I don't know what is."
The door opened. "Unbelievable," Giles muttered as they hurried inside.
Spike quickly shut the door behind them, hoping that it would hold until they knew why they were sent there. They walked along a darkened corridor until they came upon the cavern that he and Angel had been taken by Drogyn.
"Uh, Spike. Wanna tell us what's going on? Cuz, I see dead people," Willow's voice rung out.
Fred wasn't sure why she let Lindsey coerce her into going to the Deeper Well with him. It was the one place that she never wanted to visit. The place where Illyria should have still been deposited. If she hadn't been released, Fred would still be alive. Well, maybe alive. She could have as easily been killed when Angel took on the Circle of the Black Thorn.
"So what are we looking for?" she asked as the two of them entered an unlit corridor.
It was dark and dank. Fred could tell that they were underground. It just had that feel of being enclosed and the creepiness of the walls made her shiver. Kind of like the storm cellar back home. Only a storm cellar you could climb back out of after the storm. Here, it was a graveyard of supernatural beings. The Old Ones, as Lindsey called them. She hadn't done any research on this group, because, hey she was dying at the time. And no one would let her, although she had tried. Passing out in Wesley's arms had prohibited her from trying to help. In the end, it hadn't mattered. What had been started couldn't be stopped.
"Clues to what might have happened to Illyria."
"Lindsey, I'm not sure I'm the best person to help you," she explained.
"Fred, you're the only one to help me. Everyone else who could isn't dead."
"Got that right."
"Plus, you see things that other people don't see."
"Maybe because I'm dead," Fred said, emphasizing the last word very clearly.
"I'm not doing this to freak you out or anything."
Fred stopped his forward progress with her hand. He didn't flinch at her touch, only leaned into it even more. "What did you think I was gonna do? This isn't some school field trip where we're gonna see rocks or science experiments. This is the place that housed the thing that killed me."
"I'm just doin' my job. And I need your expertise."
Fred noticed the signals Lindsey was sending her. He needed, or wanted more than her expertise. Why did he have to go and change the way their friendship was going? She was too confused to even respond to the way his eyes looked into hers. Closing her eyes, she sighed to calm herself. Now was not the time to deal with Lindsey's crush.
"Then let's quit messing around and figure out what is going on. Move it, buster."
Lindsey smiled at her, eyes twinkling in the faded light. He started off down the opposite corridor where the light seemed to shine a bit brighter.
"Why me?" Fred moaned, hoping that his little infatuation would cease to exist.
Oh boy, was she an expert in infatuations. But they never turned out well. Someone always got hurt. And she always seemed to do the hurting.
Following after Lindsey, she stopped when Lindsey abruptly came to a halt.
"What is that?" he called out, awed by something by the tone in his voice.
Fred glanced over a rail, not wanting to look down for fear of falling. Rows upon rows of what seemed like sarcophagi floated off in the distance. As she looked down, they seemed to go on forever.
"Must be where they house all the Old Ones."
"What if they get out? What if they all escape? What do we do?" Fred started to babble, obviously way too nervous to even think about why they were there.
"None of them are getting out any time soon. That's why we're here, right? To make sure that doesn't happen. We don't want Illyria to cause any problems by releasing her friends."
Fred wondered how much damage the Old One had done in her body. From what little she could garner from Cordelia and the others, Illyria had tried to do as much damage as possible, only to have the gang stop her. She really needed to sit down with her and ask all the right questions when she got back.
"So we need to find out what is going on? Lindsey, it's not like there's a computer here with all the information we need."
"Maybe there's files. There's gotta be something to tell us who and what is housed here."
Both started to look around at the cavern room, finding nothing of significance.
"OK, so what do you know, Lindsey? This guy, Drogyn I think I heard, what was he? Did he oversee all of this?"
"From what I learned, he was the Keeper. Must have known every Old One deposited her. Knew what they had done, where they were located, everything. Only he's dead now."
"Lindsey. You know what you're sayin', don't you? If the Keeper is gone, who's mindin' the store?"
Lindsey pulled his hand through his hair, realizing just exactly what she was telling him. No Keeper, nobody to protect the place.
They had been so intent in finding out where the information had been stored, that the two of them hadn't seen the three other beings enter the room. So much for not revealing themselves to humans and vampires.
"I see dead people, Giles," Willow's voice echoed off the walls.
Fred turned and gave a half-smile in return. "This is not what it looks like."
The look of shock on Spike's face scared her. He didn't believe what they were all seeing.
"This is not right. I, you're dead. Percy saw you die. Don't play these tricks Illyria," he growled out, backing into one of the railings.
"You're not supposed to see us," Lindsey said, stating the obvious.
"We see you, whoever you are. We want to know why we've been brought here," Giles interrupted.
"It's Fred. You're here. I'm not sure why," Willow said, believing at least what she was seeing with her own two eyes.
"Illusions, Red. That's all. She's dust in the wind." Spike was unconvinced about what he was seeing.
"As were you, at one point, Spike. Tell us why you're here," Fred asked.
"To find me," Illyria spoke up from behind the group. "I am not here to cause you any harm."
Fred didn't know whether to cringe in fear or belt her for all that Illyria had done. If she was here, then it wasn't good. Illyria stared at Fred now, turning her head to the side, like she was studying the former physicist. Fred wasn't a specimen in a museum put on display. And it was just too freaky seeing herself all dressed up in that leather get-up.
"Blue, you, you have to stop doing this," Spike cried, sinking down onto the ground.
"What did you do to him?" Fred ground out, wanting to protect Spike, but seeing no way to do it since she wasn't solid.
"He is grieving. I do not know how to help him," Illyria haltingly replied, worry etched on her face. "Just as I did not know how to help Wesley with his grief. These human emotions are perplexing."
"You did this to him, to Wesley. Can't you see that?" Fred implored of the blue being.
"Not to me, Fred. It's not her fault. Everything I touch dies. Every person I get close to, dies."
Fred bent down to look at Spike directly. She wanted to take her charge in her arms and hold him until all the bad stuff went away. Gone was the bravado and the I don't care attitude. Gone was the vampire with a soul that told Angel to get over himself. He had taken all of Angel's brooding and angst to heart, making it his own. And he hadn't had a century to deal with any of the things he had done.
A crash down the corridor indicated that something was coming. It was obvious from the way that Giles and Willow were panting that they had been running from something. Fred just hoped that whatever it was, she and Lindsey could help.
Another man entered the room, about the same age as the man Willow called Giles. He didn't look all that pleasant to Fred. From the looks on Willow and Giles's face, he probably wasn't all that pleasant.
"Ah, there you are. I had wondered where the three of you had run off to. It's time, now. So sorry that I won't be needing you and the witch, Rupert. I was so looking forward to kicking your arse for putting me in prison."
"Ethan, whatever you are doing, you don't understand the ramifications."
The man that Giles called Ethan didn't look at her or Lindsey. Like he didn't see them at all. Maybe he couldn't.
"We can't let him do anything in here," Lindsey told the others.
"I agree," Giles answered.
"Talking to imaginary friends now, are we? Just stand back. The vampire is all I need."
"He doesn't see us, Lindsey," Fred explained to him.
"Kind of figured that out too. This means we have the advantage."
"Or we can't help at all," Fred pessimistically replied.
"So we need to play keepaway," Willow concluded.
"My thoughts exactly," Giles agreed while Willow stuck up her hand and sent a fireball Ethan's way.
"How do we find the others?" Buffy asked.
The group had made it downstairs, tying Mark up to a chair, who was now unconscious from Angel's fist pounding him.
"How do we know where they went? We could open the portal back up? Wes, any thoughts?" Angel responded, trying to seem helpful.
Wesley didn't know how to open the portal, didn't know where to find the three who had disappeared. Maybe if he found a spell to perform, he could do it. Do a locator spell, maybe. But it could take hours for them to research it. His powers seemed to encompass tactical magicks, like defending people, not portals and such.
"I'm not sure," he hesitated.
"Well, you need to be sure," Angel prodded him back.
"Hey, back off Soul Boy. He's in no shape for you to push around," Faith said, defending him from Angel.
He could tell that she was on alert for anything. Her neck and shoulder were injured, but she looked as if she was ready to do battle. His slayer seemed always ready to do battle. Especially when she was around him. He invited trouble. They never got a break.
"Faith, I'm not pushing him around. He's our only hope in finding them."
"Listen, we need to not argue about this. Do some kind of locator spell and we'll just get in the van and go to them."
"It's not that simple, Buffy," Angel explained. "If I could, I'd just open a portal to wherever Rayne went right now."
A portal opened right behind Angel. Everyone's eyes went wide with confusion.
"I made a portal," Angel murmured out, a look of astonishment on his face. He turned to see the swirling gateway directly behind him.
"We don't know to where it might lead," Wesley told him, not wanting to end up on the other side of the world.
Things just didn't add up, Wesley thought. He had magical abilities that previously hadn't surfaced. Now Angel could open portals just by saying so. Was anyone else going to display abilities they hadn't had before they came to England?
"Well, someone hold onto me and I'll see where it leads," Angel said to the others.
Buffy took Angel's hand while he stepped through the opening portal. Immediately he came back through, eyes lit up. A smile appeared across his face.
"You won't believe. I, I made a portal. The Deeper Well's on the other side." The look of accomplishment was unmistakable.
"Better be where Ethan went. We go through and you're wrong, you are so gonna get your ass kicked," Buffy pointed out.
Angel scowled back in answer. "It's true. Let's go."
Angel held up his blue-tinged hand to Wesley, showing him without words that Illyria must be connected to them somehow. It might explain their powers, he thought. Faith's hand also was blue. He wondered what things she could do now. Wesley followed Angel through the portal, with Faith on his heels. Buffy had also made it through, Sam trailing quickly behind her. Then the thing vanished without a trace.
"Xander?" Buffy shouted, worried about her friend.
A roar down the hill made them all turn their heads in unison.
"What is that?" Sam asked.
Wesley knew exactly who and what the creature was trying to smash a tree down. He had researched it enough to know what Illyria looked like in her purest form. He thought he would never get to see her like that though. Now, he and the rest could kill her and place her back in the Well, where she properly belonged.
"Illyria, an Old One that escaped the Deeper Well. In her purest, demon form."
"She's trying to get into the Deeper Well, Wes."
"I think someone's shit needs some serious rearranging," Faith said as she made her way down the hill.
"So, Wes, if I can open portals, what's Faith gonna be able to do?" Angel whispered as they made their way down to the gargantuan creature at the door of the Deeper Well.
"Hey, you wanna come over here and fight someone your own size," Faith taunted the creature.
"Faith," Wesley scolded.
He never understood the need to hassle a demon when one was fighting. It certainly was a style that he didn't approve of. Yet, time and time again, both Faith and Buffy tended to do it with zeal. He just wished they would both shut it and get the job done.
"Do watchers even have a sense of humor?" she asked as the creature turned back towards the group.
"It's bred out of us from birth," he answered.
Faith laughed a hearty laugh, with Buffy joining in. "Sarcasm, they're the masters. I think it has something to do with being British," Buffy quipped.
Sam's head swiveled back and forth between the fighters. He'd need to get with the program if he were to survive his job for any significant amount of time. But not with Faith, Wesley concluded. And not with him around. Why was he jealous of a boy?
"Wes, any time now," Angel murmured him to start what he had planned.
"Angel, I don't particularly have a plan in mind."
"Well, why don't we fight it?"
"Do you know how?" Wesley asked him.
"We kick its demon ass, is what we do. Hey, Illyria, come here and let me show you what a slayer is made of. It's time for some serious payback."
Even Buffy looked at Faith strangely. Faith wasn't usually this verbose with the demons she was fighting.
"Faith, don't you think it's time to stop talking and start doing," Wesley reminded her.
The thing lumbered over to them, looking down but not attacking. "You think that you can challenge me?" the creature voiced, deeply reverberating around them.
"I think I can send your ugly ass back to where you belong."
With that, Faith disappeared, reappearing at the demon's leg. She struck out at the demon, making it fall back immediately.
"Uh, Wes?" Angel started, just as perplexed as the rest of the group.
"She's time shifting," Wesley said, smiling in spite of himself.
Buffy had already taken off down the hill to join her sister slayer, trying to find an opening while Faith appeared and reappeared around the demon. Wesley gathered his strength up, realizing that he could help also. Both Giles and Willow were near, so he could borrow their power for small amounts of time. What he didn't understand was Illyria didn't have that ability. Sure, she could time shift, was quite strong and could open portals at a whim. There must have been other things that she could accomplish that he hadn't known about. It must be how he had gained this ability. So he joined the fray, hoping to make a difference and put Illyria back where she belonged.
"Where'd they go?" Xander wanted to know.
One moment, the portal opened and Angel went through. The next moment, it closed right after Sam had joined them. Now he was stuck with Ms. Council Babe and Mark the Traitor Boyfriend. He'd have to keep control of both of them until the others returned.
"The portal just closed. Where is this Deeper Well?"
"Not a clue. I think that good old Mark knows though. Don't cha."
Mark just scowled at them. Xander made sure that the bindings were tied tight again for the tenth time, not wanting to end up like Wesley had. His mind was kinda scary too. Not a place he wanted be trapped in any time soon.
"I do hope that they manage to stop whatever is going on. Those two slayers are unorthodox to say the least. Their training," Clarisse started.
"Has kept the two of them alive for a very long time. And it will for a long time to come. Clarisse, don't you see that."
"If our slayers become willful beings, then how is the Council going to be able to control them? The power that they yield."
"Is what they use to take the bad guys down. Yeah, sure, it's not perfect. But Buffy and Faith? They're the good guys. So are Angel and the rest of them. But don't tell them I said that. I'll never hear the end of it."
"You don't trust Angel and his people?"
"There's history. Nothing that can't be overcome."
Clarisse sat down opposite Mark, looking at him like she was trying to figure him out. "You're a bad man."
Xander snickered at her statement. Yes, Mark was a bad guy, who was gonna get his butt kicked just as soon as Buffy could get back there and do it.
"You can't stop him from arising. We have seen to it. He is all powerful and will rule the world. Giles, he's the worst of them all. I hope that he goes down and fast. The bastard. That bastard took my place."
"Huh?" Xander wondered out loud. Mark has a beef against Giles? "Wait a minute? Giles has made some enemies, but you're not on the list."
"I should have been the head of the Council. I should have been a watcher. He took it all away from me. He took away my chances to have a slayer. She's mine. Buffy should have been mine."
Clarisse got up to stand beside Xander. "He's bonkers, isn't he?" she asked.
"Yikes. Anger management issues much? Let's gag him."
Xander quickly put an old rag around the guy's mouth.
"Well, done, Mr. Harris." Clarisse smiled his way.
Xander thought that she could be quite attractive in a British sort of way when she wasn't bitching about Buffy and the others.
"I aim to please."
Faith was totally in the game. Every time she thought about moving faster than the beast she was fighting, she would move at mach speed and get the jump on it. Everyone else slowed down to a crawl, kind of like that Matrix movie. She always wanted to be like those guys.
Angel and Buffy had joined her while Wesley was trying out different ways to smash the guy with his magicks. So Wes had wicked magicks, Angel could open portals and she could slow down time. Too freaky for words. But an advantage was an advantage. She'd use it until it didn't work anymore.
Damn it, damn it, she shouldn't have thought about that, because the creature caught on to her little trick and confronted her in the time shift. It could time shift along with her.
"Holy shit," she yelled out, getting tossed back and slammed into the tree. "Wesley, demon's time shifting with me."
The demon disappeared for a moment to appear right beside Wesley, sending him sprawling to the ground in an instant. It disappeared again, so Faith decided to join him. She watched as the demon picked Wesley's prone form in its pincers, like it was going to break him in two. Faith dove and hit the pincers before it could close around Wesley's torso. That must have broken its concentration, because they both ended up on the ground, out of the time shift with the demon.
Both she and Wesley scrambled up off the ground. As she started to take the thing on again, she noticed the black in Wesley's eyes. He was working up some serious mojo in that head of his. She just hoped he didn't go all Carrie on the rest of them too.
The ground trembled around them as Wesley brought up his hands. The demon looked all around, like it didn't know where that was coming from.
"Stupid fuck," Faith mumbled as she started to go for it and take that thing down once and for all.
Only Wesley held her in place. A pincer twisted as she watched. It went flying off, blue blood spurting everywhere. Angel ducked as it flew by him. Wesley was totally getting his bad on, she thought. He just needed to stay focused on which bad to pummel, and then they'd all be A-OK.
The thing kept roaring, plenty of other pincers swinging out at all of them. Now it wasn't so much hot shit, Faith realized. It was injured and going to go down for the count. The ground trembled again and Wesley advanced on it, eyes sparkling in the moonlit darkness. Other injuries appeared on the thing's chest, more blood spurting down its torso. He was injuring it significantly. But Faith didn't think that it would go down that easily.
"You think that you can take me on, human. Illyria tried. I am powerful, the almighty. I am the ruler of the universe."
"Yeah, yeah. And I'm the queen of the world, you little prick," Faith taunted.
She jumped back into the fray while Wesley wasn't looking, finding an opening and crunching down until she heard a satisfying crack in the thing's blue armor. Reaching in, she yanked as hard as she could, pulling out what looked like muscle.
"Wicked gross," she said to herself as the thing flung her back.
But she had injured it also. It now was limping. Wesley wasn't the only one who had his mojo on. They seemed like they were winning, until the creature found a weak spot and picked up Angel in one of its pincers that hadn't been injured. Before she could move or Wesley could poke another hole in it, it twisted Angel's neck. The resounding crack shook her down to her bones. In an instant, Angel's head flew off, and dust fell all around them.
"No," Buffy yelled off in the distance.
TBC
Next: I know, no Cordelia in this chapter. Things are moving along so fast, I couldn't fit her in. Next chapter, I promise. We need to find out what Ethan was after too. Another showdown coming up. Oops, did I just kill Angel?
Author notes: Oh boy, fight scene. I'm already into the next chapter, so I'm hoping to post very soon. You know I love cliffhangers. I realize that this fic is a lot more action oriented than the prequel to this. That's just how it ended up. There will probably be only a few more chapters until the end. Then maybe, just maybe a sequel. We'll see how excited I am to do another. Because at the end of this one, there will still be lots of issues to explore.
Thanks go out to Fionabeam, pari106, Imzadi, Uberwicca, Doza, ka-mai2286, shawooshy, and everyone else who is following. I'm tired just writing about them fighting.
Answers to questions:
Pari106—Mark, one bad guy; I'm not Buffy bashing, I swear.
Imzadi—I feel sorry for Lilah (at least sometimes). Nice Parker comment.
Uberwicca—no prob, holidays. She's in hell, her own hell. Glad I fooled ya.
Doza—I can't kill Ethan. He's too juicy a bad guy. Illyria is genderless, that doesn't mean she/he/it can't have a mate of some kind.
Ka-mai2286—I do the same thing! Probably explains why I'm so tired. I like long reviews too.
Shawooshy—they aren't too cuddly in this fic.